Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Contradictorily contradistinction

So apparently Clare Werbeloff ain't P J O'Rourke. Well, I could have told you that. It's not just that Clare Werbeloff is first and foremost, well, Clare Werbeloff, it's also that just about every person in the media has, from time to time, been referred to as an 'imitation P J O'Rourke' or a 'wannabee P J O'Rourke' or 'no P J O'Rourke'. Actually, just look at any person in the street, and I can pretty much guarantee you that they won't be P J O'Rourke either. Just about every person, anywhere in the world, is not P J O'Rourke; the world is practically teeming with non-P J O'Rourke's; we have a substantial overpopulation of non P J O'Rourke's where I live. It should be written on their driving licenses: not P J O'Rourke. Maybe it is.

Even P J O'Rourke may not be P J O'Rourke. The man could be suffering from a non-identity crisis, for all I know. I don't know how he manages it, but the alternative - actually being P J O'Rourke - is just too impossible to imagine, a contradictory contradiction in contradistinction to itself. Does he buckle under the strain from not being himself, one wonders? Or does he simply keep on keeping on with the business of not being the person who his name says he is, quietly writing away under the name of P J O'Rourke, who he isn't? It's a mystery that perhaps we'll never know the answer to.